I sit here, doubting whether I’m ready to start on my novel on Monday. I don’t feel prepared. I feel like I should prepare somehow. Maybe I need to write out all of the proposed characters and all of their traits on separate index cards. Maybe I should write a plot line. Maybe I should know what I’m going to be doing. Maybe this is all part of my problem. Maybe I think too much. My high school basketball coach used to tell me “Don’t think...” when I’d do something wrong, and he’d ask me why I did it. I would say, “I thought I was supposed to do that...” His reply - “Don’t think.” I know what he meant, but I wonder if it was the most helpful thing he could’ve said to someone who does, indeed, think a great deal. I used to joke that, after sucking the helium that is supposed to kill brain cells, that THAT would be probably be a good idea. I think I may have too many. They fire too much. I need to put out that mental fire, I think (see? I’m thinking again). I need to bring the soothing cool blue water of Spirit in more fully to wash over my burning brain and balance my dizziness that can now lay me flat in bed for an afternoon.
Should I plan more? I actually may. But what would happen if I didn’t? I wonder if I could come up with the 1000 words a day that will be required of me to move my novel forward. I don’t know. It’s one of my deepest secrets that I share with you, my friend, on this day. I have a fear that I won’t be able to write a novel. I don’t know if I have it in me to do something long. I’ve written three children’s books, but they’re short. I’ve written Dad’s 440 page book, but that wasn’t WRITING writing - it was more putting stuff together, transcribing, organizing, being creative. Do you see? We all have our secrets, and I am airing mine. I’m going public. I’m not perfect. There are things that frighten me, but I know that with every day I am less interested in being afraid and more interested in being brave.
So on this third day before the start of National Novel Writing Month I face the fire and walk slowly toward it, knowing that I will soon be walking straight into it, and although I am afraid, I’m also excited, because movement is exciting. Perhaps it is the standing still that is the most difficult. So I move, not knowing what I’m doing or where I’m going, but trusting that I’ll figure it all out as I go.